June 2022 Grocery Challenge

CynicalPinnacle

Hi, I'm new here but realised we've spending an obscene amount on groceries, toiletries, household cleaning and eating out; it's only the 5th of the month and we've already spent £243 on all of those categories! Anyway, time to start from where we are, we are a household of 2 adults and one very picky 5yo.

Please put us down for £600 to cover our groceries, toiletries and cleaning stuff.

I would like to get us down to £400 in a couple of months but seeing as we've already blown almost half of the budget this month, I'm not going to cut to hard or fast. Also,the eating out budget also needs to be tackled too. I can't even remember having any particularly tasty or memorable meals for what we've spent, so definite more planning is required so we don't just rely on takeaways or meals out because we haven't got a meal planned.

FrugalHedonist

Good Morning,
                       It should be a NS foodwise today and I have a meal plan for Mon-Fri, which is a bit dull but there we go. It's a bit of an odd week as its usually just me and my child to account for apart from a Tuesday where I have my bf child (we don't live together) as he works late and Saturday we have dinner at his house but this week he is away at a wedding so I have both children on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday (pray for me)

Monday - Hoppin John (veggie version)
Tuesday - Beans on toast (kids) and leftover Dhal me with hm rice pudding out the freezer for pudding
Wednesday - A1d1 Cheese and Spinach lattice with mash and vegetables
Thursday - Leftover Hoppin John or chinese chicken curry out the freezer
Friday - Frozen pizza and chips (DP is buying, yey)
Sat and Sunday - TBC

Bluegreen143

I’m going to reduce my budget to £400 all in (food, household misc, cleaning & toilet and any pet costs). That’s for two adults, a 6yo and a 3yo and we just have two chickens and a canary for pets currently. 

Reason for the reduction as due to holidays we only have three shopping weeks at home this month so I moved the excess to the holiday pot. While both holidays are self catered I’d rather keep the shopping for these in the holiday budget as we spend more when buying for being away.

Doom_and_Gloom

Thank you elsiepac for doing this thread. As I keep saying it really does help keep us accountable, even if some of us blow the budget such as we did in May, epp. 

Our June budget is going to be £240
The month goes 1st to the 30th.

This is for two adults, my OH and I, and a chinchilla (works out at £3.75 each for us and 50p a day for the chinni) . Includes all food and drink (except alcohol), cleaning products, toiletries etc and all chinchilla items (food, hay, sand, treats etc.). Really hoping to come in budget or even better lower as, after giving it thought and being practical, I have upped the budget significantly (looks like we can afford this increase but may need to look again later). I will be close to a panic attack if we go over to be honest as I'm not sure we can go any higher.

Had an A&C delievery today and we have since the start of the month been to Mr. S and L!do.

OH went to the ethnic shop near his parents to pick up some spices we use that are cheaper there as he was going near it. Asked him how much it all came to and he said "Erm £8 something?" So to make sure I've inputted it as £9 in the budget to cover as he also didn't ask for a receipt as they only print it if asked for. I don't mind the no receipt thing but I wish he'd taken note of the total.

All together so far we are at £118.25 spent and we are only on the 6th 😒. 

Dinners for the week for me will be;
Vegetable stew x3
Chinese (likely a stir fry of some kind with rice/rice noodles and tofu)
Vegan pizza with salad (using a bfree base from the freezer and some vegan cheese I have in the fridge bought on offer a while ago)
Vegetable and tofu fajitas (the wraps are gone their BBD but look fine. I'm sure the wraps I don't use the OH will, failing that they will be chucked into the freezer as once opened they will go bad otherwise).
Vegan fry up on - this will definitely be Sundays dinner.

£118.25/£240.

£121.75 left.

Scheduled O~boxes with add ons this month coming to £40.96 as it stands. So we really have £80.79 left to budget with, I will keep this in mind.

Greying_Pilgrim

Shuffles in and waves to all 👋

£30.15 spend to declare today.

Popped across to a nearby town - as there is a world food supermarket there, and i wanted to get some dried beans.  Sad to report that the prices have just escalated, and there weren't any bargains to be had.  Furthermore, when taken on price per kilo or 500g, the supermarkets have started to be cheaper than this particular supermarket.  Which is a real shame.  £11.05 spent in total on beans (Black eye beans, chickpeas, lentils and split yellow peas).  I also came across a shop that had set up in what used to be a meat wholesaler.  I thought at first it was just a discounter - stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap.  Then I noticed that some things were free.  Then I noticed that some things were horrendously expensive (organic porridge oats for £10 anyone???), and other things were cheap.  Some things were out of date, some things were in date.......  So then I thought I'd wandered into a community pantry in error, but there was no mention of membership cards, or fees, or limits to how much of anything you could purchase in total, so I figure it must have been a commercial enterprise.  There didn't appear to be anything that I needed - and as it happened, they were charging more per tin for chickpeas than I had bought on offer in MrT (kayteecee brand 3for£1).  I hadn't the nerve to help my self to the free veg (although the sign implored you to), as I had not made a purchase.  

May be able to reclaim a couple of pounds off DH, as had to get some non-food stuff for him, and as I only have the grocery budget, at the mo, that is what was spent.  

Considering we are only on 6th June, and I have spent nearly £80, I've no high hopes of this month 🙁But pull it out of the hat I must, as I have relooked at the monthly income/household budget, and there is literally no wiggle room anymore.  Every penny has a role 🙁

Greying X

EssexHebridean

DawnW said:

Bought a huge bag of branded dishwasher tablets for £5 from a market stall this morning. These work out loads cheaper than the supermarket own brand ones I usually buy    Now spent £68.94 / £230.

We have similarly useful stalls at our local-ish market too - and I have already clocked that sort of deal on DW tablets there too. Also Fairy liquid - I struggle to use anything else thanks to hard water issues - decided a while ago that the cheaper options were often a false economy. our cheapy stalls can be worth keeping an eye on for all sorts of things we've discovered - I got two tubes of toothpaste on one the other week for £1! 

goldfinches

CynicalPinnacle said:

 Also,the eating out budget also needs to be tackled too. I can't even remember having any particularly tasty or memorable meals for what we've spent, so definite more planning is required so we don't just rely on takeaways or meals out because we haven't got a meal planned.

I have a couple of strategies that I use for exactly this reason so thought you might like to know what they are. Every month I buy one meal from these people Dishpatch which usually costs about the same as two regular takeaways and comes from my treat budget. The other thing I do is to choose a special recipe to make at home each week that takes more time to prepare and is a treat for either Friday or Saturday and comes from my regular GC budget. These two things together mean that I no longer buy takeaways which like you I found unmemorable and poor value for money. Hope this is helpful to you and other foodies.

DawnW

£3.50 spent on dog food today (he is wee, so this will last him a month even though it isn't a big bag). Also succumbed to 2 packets of flavoured McV's chocolate digestives reduced to 50 p each for some reason. I imagine the flavours (strawberry cheesecake and lemon drizzle) were not popular - though I can personally vouch that the strawberry cheesecake ones are yummy   I very rarely buy biscuits, and only bought these because of the price. My waistline WILL NOT thank me! Must do better.

So £73.44 spent out of £230.

Greying_Pilgrim

Good Evening June GC'rs

Just wanted to pop in to report on the recipe I made for tea Smokey Vegetable Jambalaya, which you may recall was featured on the BBC link that dear goldfinches supplied for us 😊

Have to say, it worked well, and given that in addition to trying out a new to me recipe, I decided to try out a totally new to me method of cooking as well (wot am I like??? 🙄), quite frankly I'm amazed I was able to put summat on the tea table! 🤣

I decided to have a go at cooking this dish in the pressure cooker - even though the recipe is not written as a PC recipe on the BBC site.

I used 1 tin of red kidney beans, I only used 100g of brown basmati rice (as that was literally - down to the last grain - all I had), but I didn't use so many mixed vegetables, and it provided sufficient portions for 2 people (with more ingredients, the recipe is supposed to feed 4).  In all other ways, I think I followed the recipe - used a bit less water, because it doesn't evaporate so readily in a PC.  I hadn't cooked any long grain rice in the pressure cooker before - let along brown basmati, which does take longer to cook, so I bunged everything in (apart from the oregano & thyme) and set the timer for 8 mins on full pressure with natural de-pressure.  In hindsight, this was my biggest mistake.  It wasn't quite enough time to fully cook the rice (I ended up giving it 2 minutes more), but it was sufficient time to cook the frozen mixed veg - specifically the broccoli and cauliflower.  So, next time, I would cook the majority of ingredients (the baby carrots fared fine), for 8 mins, and then add in the broc and cauli (if I was using), and cook for a further 2 mins, then add in any herbs and seasoning at the end.  I added in a bit more broccoli and cauliflower and by 10 mins cooking time, the rice was cooked, and it had absorbed the stock/tomato juices, and was just how it should have been - plus the overall appearance of the dish was enhanced by being able to 'see' broccoli & cauliflower. I did also chuck in a handful of peas at the last 2 min point - mostly because I had them, and also they add to the overall colourfulness.

Keeper of a recipe for me, as the resulting jambalaya is tasty and  it is something else that I can do with Brown Basmati rice, and I will definitely make jambalaya in the PC in future as it is just so straightforward if you give consideration to the robustness (or otherwise) of the veg that you are adding in, and at what point.  



I forgot to mention earlier that I did benefit from a small YS win today.  I got 3 mozzarella YS'd to 30p each in HB.  They are now in the freezer awaiting future mozzarella bakes or pizza toppings. 

Greying X

atrixa

I'm up to £74.27/£150. I'm feeling quietly optimistic after a poor few months.

Tea tonight was a vegan Bolognese. Will be making a chilli later in the week, hopefully with the first chillies from my plants, yey!